Distractions
by Xinthos
Summary: Everyone needs to escape from reality once in a while, and the Konoha Shinobi had all found ways to do it... All except one. [OneShot]


**A/N:** Well, here's another one-shot inspired by something I read earlier… too bad I can't remember where or what it was.

**Summary:** Everyone needs to escape from reality once in a while, and the Konoha Shinobi had all found ways to do it. Except one.

**Distractions**

Sometimes when she had nothing else to do, Sakura would start thinking about Sasuke. Usually, Sakura didn't like to think about the past. At least, not anymore. But there was that rare occasion when she just couldn't help but think about everyone and everything, which inevitably led her to thinking about Sasuke. And sitting there, she would wonder what it was that made him so different from everyone else. It wasn't so much the fact that he was bent on killing someone, that was a motive that she had seen before in several others. It wasn't the fact that he was so anti-social or that he pushed people away, _anybody _could do that, whether they had a reason or not.

So what was it? Sakura didn't expect to find the answer from trying to distract herself.

Walking home from the supermarket, she was doing her best trying not to let her mind drift, trying not to think of the boy that plagued her thoughts wherever she went, and so she concentrated instead on the people around her. There was Kakashi, focused solely on his erotic novel, sauntering down the street and seemingly not looking where he was going, but she knew that he was perfectly aware of what went on around him. She would have waved at him had her hands not been full.

Sitting down at a bench to rest, she giggled as Ino was busy flirting with a whole crowd of innocent boys… she felt sorry for them. In fact, she felt sorry for _anyone_ that Ino flirted with, because they always seemed to become obsessed with her about two minutes later. _But then,_ Sakura thought to herself, _it might be worse if _she_ was obsessed with_ you. Making a move to get up, she narrowly missed getting run over by Rock Lee, who was apparently racing with his beloved teacher. He bowed at her before racing off twice as fast. After giving herself a moment to roll her eyes, she continued on her way home, waving at Chouji who was eating chips while simultaneously playing chess with Shikamaru.

She didn't bother looking for Naruto like she usually would, he had told her he was going to go train and had ran off declaring his ultimate dream of become hokage, as was the usual with him. Hinata, no doubt, had gone off after him, and she sighed at that thought. There was no way they'd ever start dating unless Hinata became more straightforward or Naruto became less dense, and who _knows_ when either of those things is going to happen?

It wasn't until Sakura had reached her apartment that the answer to the question that had been bugging her for weeks now came and slapped her in the face. Of _course_, why hadn't she thought of it before? Sasuke wasn't missing friends, he had those; he wasn't missing a goal, he had that too; he wasn't missing direction or talent, all of Konoha knew how good of a ninja he was. He was missing a distraction; a little bit of normality in an all too crazy way of life. He was missing something that everyone else already had, and now that she took the time to think about it, it made perfect sense; Kakashi always reading his perverted books, Ino and her constant flirting, Lee's non-stop training, Shikamaru's love of chess, Chouji never being without food, Hinatahad Naruto, Naruto had his dreams and herself, she had Sasuke (which soon needed a distraction of its own- medic training), and Sasuke… Sasuke didn't have anything at all.

And on a deeper level, she realizes that everyone, herself included, must have realized it at one time or another, because _everyone_ had tried at least once to distract him. Everyone had tried, whether through fighting, flirting, training, love, or promises, to try and make him more human. Any Shinobi in this village could honestly say that they had made a move to save him, in their own discreet way. Still, it hadn't been enough. And Sakura thinks that maybe being distracted is what keeps Shinobi sane, as long as it's not _too_ distracted. She also thinks that she was once eerily close to Sasuke's kind of focus- the kind that drowned everything else out, the kind that would make you willing to give up everything for your goal- even if she _had _beenconcentrating on him. And she wonders; if she had been a little more focused on him, maybe he would have taken her with him.

Sakura doesn't think about Sasuke for a long, long time.


End file.
